A number of different types of pneumatic practice tees have been developed which employ an air stream to support a ball in an elevated position above the tee based upon the Bernoulli Effect. Exemplary tees are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,564,195 (tennis); U.S. Pat. No. 4,575,080 (baseball or softball), U.S. Pat. No. 4,858,921 (baseball or softball), U.S. Pat. No. 5,011,144 (tennis) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,145,176 (golf), and United States Patents Application Publication 2002/0198068 (generic sports ball).
While generally effective as a training device for facilitating hitting practice and providing instantaneous feed-back by permitting the user to observe flight of the struck ball, room remains for improvement.
Accordingly, a need exists for an improved pneumatic practice tee.